April progress report

What’s Going On?

Man, I’ll be honest with you peeps, it’s been a roller coaster month again.  It started out pretty good, pain-free for the most part.   I rode too much over the weekend of April 9/10 (see previous entry for details) and has some soreness after that.  It wasn’t actually all that bad; mostly muscle pain.

Over the past week, though, I’ve been in a world of suck.  It’s back to feeling injured — the swollen deep core pain that I haven’t felt since getting the epidural.  Fortunately it’s tapering off a bit, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s tied to monthly hormones and thus transient instead of an actual injury, but I won’t sugarcoat — I’ve been damned frustrated over the past week or so.

I’m resolved to give it another week before I get really pissed off at the universe, though, because today is admittedly much better than yesterday.  Perhaps I can get away with shaking my fist and giving the universe the stinkeye without having to actually get angry with it. 😉

So, what’s the plan?

• I see my back doc on Monday but am not expecting anything other than an offer to do another epidural injection.
• Peter and I are starting a six-week program (one class per week) next Tuesday at the Esther Gokhale Wellness Center.  A coworker recommended the class to me; he took it a few months ago after having back surgery.  Peter and I went to her free introductory class last month and were very impressed, so we signed up for the “real” class.  It seems to be part posture, part “learning to move”, part anatomy.  I’ve got her book and am trying to incorporate some of her posture advice into my daily life.
• I saw my general practitioner for a checkup a couple of weeks ago and she mentioned the Stanford Pain Clinic.  I may look into this a bit more; it seems like it’s primarily for people with substantial pain (like, “I can’t function without heavy narcotics” pain) but it would probably be worth investigating.
• Melinda has a coworker that she says has a knack for figuring out what’s wrong with people. 😉  She’s going to give me his info and I may make an appointment.
• I’d like to try acupuncture; not sure if I’ll get to it this month.

Exercise.

• I switched this month from daily stretching/exercise to doing the stretching routine only after my gym workouts.  I think this is reducing the muscle pain I was having as I’m now only really stretching after warming everything up.
• Inversion table probably 3x/week on average.
• I’m using the foam roller and its ilk at least 3x/week.
• Still weekly training with Melinda.
• I’m currently in Week 6 of Couch to 5K, and it’s going great.  A single workout is now about 3000 steps and I’m able to walk at a brisk pace for 20 minutes straight (no pain during or after).

Motorcycling.

• The motorcycling is going well in general, though 50 miles seems to still be about the tipping point.
• I learned my lesson this month — do EITHER 20+ miles OR ride two days in a row, but not both.  Sigh.  This injury has had too many lessons.  I’m sick of learning things; when can I just ride the damn bike again?